For his first international break at the head of the France team, Zinédine Zidane carried out a large rotation of his squad. With four matches played in two weeks, the coach wanted to distribute playing time and discover all the players called up, while maintaining a competitive team at each meeting. Management which allowed him to learn the first lessons about his group, notably this Monday evening against Belgium with a reshuffled eleven.
“For this gathering, it was planned. 4 matches in 15 days (11 in reality). The players have just started their season, I wanted to see everyone. It happened the way I wanted. It wasn’t easy. We had to make four competitive teams. We were pretty good in our matches, we can always do better, but we did that in 15 days, and it’s the first time we’ve seen each other. It’s encouraging. I am very optimistic for the future. We will see in which area we need to progress. We will have to occupy more of the penalty area, to overrun, to make crosses. We’re going to have to put more players in the box to be more effective.”explained the former Real Madrid coach at a press conference.
